


Out of reasons

by Ex-Genesis (orphan_account)



Category: Disney RPF
Genre: Angst, Incest, M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-26
Updated: 2010-06-26
Packaged: 2017-11-12 15:52:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/492965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/Ex-Genesis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This thing keeping them apart.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Out of reasons

Joe missed the times when he took care of Nick, when Nick would look at him with wide eyes, asking for a kind of attention only he could give: Joe's. No one ever really understood why, but Nick would often run to Joe if he was frightened or nervous. At first, Joe didn't really know what to do with that. When Nick learned to walk, it was straight to Joe, and Joe was too little to really know how to comfort anyone, but he'd pat Nick's back just the same until his little brother calmed on his own, and then shrugged when Nick ran off again.  
  
When they were little like that, Nick tended to keep to himself. Whenever Joe was bored because Kevin was reading, and he just wanted to play but Nick was too involved with himself to entertain Joe, mom would always tell him Nick was a little genius and had things going on in his head that no one really understood, that Nick needed to figure out on his own. It wasn't anything personal. Denise hadn't meant to do it at all, but somehow Nick being a genius meant that Joe was stupid, in his head anyway, and since Kevin was so into books, and Joe couldn't read that great yet, he felt even worse, because maybe Kevin wasn't a genius, but he was better off than Joe, and the way his mom held conversations with Kevin about what book he was reading told Joe all he needed to know.  
  
As Joe grew up, he tried really hard in school. Soon he was picking up books the other kids in his class didn't even bother looking at. He was actually pretty good at the math they were teaching him too, and when he got home, homework barely took any time at all. By then, though, Nick had started getting more attention of a different kind. He was still a genius, but it was his little voice that got him looks around the house then. He always broke out singing at the most random of times. He got in trouble once for breaking up prayer time by gradually building up into a chorus of "Winnie the Pooh" but Joe had seen the laugh his mother was trying and rolled his eyes. If he ever did that, he'd be saying the next three prayers and reading five verses of the scriptures for the next four nights. Nick, of course, was verbally reprimanded and that was the end of it as dad bowed his head and began again.  
  
No one really cared about what a smart young man Joe was becoming. Kevin was older, so he got attention because he was like the second in command. Say something happened to dad, then Kevin would be the man of the house, so his progression was much more important than Joe's. And Nick, well Nick was the genius, the one to win a Nobel prize, or at least a Tony. Joe was just Joe. The little goof who often said nonsensical things at dinner that made them laugh. And if he showed up an hour later after school than Kevin, dad didn't notice, mom scolded him and then patted him in the direction of his room telling him next time to ask before going to Jimmy's house because she was worried. Only Joe had seen mom worried before like the time Kevin got lost in the mall, and she had hugged him close and tight to her body, her eyes widening and then closing tight like it might bind him to her world so her boy didn't get lost. Mom wasn't worried. Joe doubted she even noticed until he walked through the door. Kevin almost looked concerned, but then Joe knew he hadn't said a thing to mom. Maybe so he didn't get Joe in trouble, but if he really cared, he would have done it anyway. Nick was the only one who gripped him in a fierce hug and told him, "I asked mom where you were Joey, but she just made me sing the song over again. I was gonna ask to look for you as soon as practice was over, promise." Joe had patted him on the head, sighed out a thanks, and went up to his room to do homework and read some more.  
  
When he got older, his vision started blurring. The second Kevin had said something about his eyesight, an eye appointment had been scheduled for the next week. When Joe told them, it ended up taking three weeks for anyone to even call an eye doctor, and then he had to break the first appointment because Kevin got sick in the car the night before. Joe finally got his glasses a week later. A whole month in school with blurry vision often had him sweating it in class as the teacher moved faster than was his ability to grasp the new concepts from his seat. They'd moved him closer, he was still having problems, eyes strained from every other moment of the day he was trying to see what was in front of him. He gradually fell behind in math and other classes. As it turns out, it only takes a month of only getting half of what is being said to ruin the rest of the year, the rest of one's school life for the subject. From that point on, it took Joe longer to do his homework, and he'd begun coming home with Cs on his tests instead of As. No one noticed anyway, so it didn't really matter. Except it did. To Joe.  
  
Nick still fit easy in his arms, still had eyes mostly for Joe even as he grew older, became the boy telling the other kids, 'No, no, that isn't where the arc is in the song!' Even then, Joe was still his protector, his savior only after God. He looked up to their father obviously, but he was afraid to go to him, afraid to get a reputation for being just a little boy, afraid to disappoint. Nick had this sense, this feeling he could never disappoint Joe, so obviously, Joe was the safest one to go to, the one who he could turn to in order to be himself. That feeling probably came from the fact that Joe was always looking at Nick like he was both proud and envied Nick to the ends of the earth. Because he did. Joe wanted to be Nick, only he wanted to be himself, with Nick, at the same time as Nick, and it was all a jumbled mess in his head. Mostly he concluded that he had no idea what he did want, but it wasn't this. This feeling of not mattering, of being the stupid one, the one who would never make anything of himself.  
  
It was when Nick needed him, came to him, that Joe fell appreciated and worth something. At some point it became the one thing Joe lived for, to be needed by his younger brother. Frankie had been born, but he was a baby who rarely cried. Mother could carry him along her side for hours and hours and he'd be fine. He didn't distract her and his father was content giving Frankie a kiss on the forehead and then returning to writing his next sermon. Joe learned to be jealous of a baby fairly easily. Frankie got to go everywhere, do everything he didn't because he was too old, and he got more affection than Joe had received in years. But even as they all grew up, Frankie didn't need Joe at all. Joe was okay though, with just Nick needing him, was okay that was what his life had become because Frankie was cool and all, but Joe frequently had the worrying thought, 'But he's not Nick...'  
  
When the chance to be in a band came around, Joe accepted not because he wanted to sing, wanted to become famous, wanted to be rich, but because maybe this would finally place him on some sort of even playing field as Kevin and Nick. Sure, he'd done a few shows on Broadway himself, but no one cared about that much either, not while Nick was still there doing  _more_ . So Joe said yes, signed a contract, and began taking direction from his father and a hundred other people,  _including_  Nick, soon realizing he was on no such field. He was in exactly the same spot he had been, only by the time their label dropped them and they got picked up again, his unimportance was more publicized.  
  
The diagnosis had come before all that, and instead of Nick needing Joe more, it had turned the tables. It had brought to Joe's attention that all along, he had needed Nick to need him more than Nick had ever needed Joe. It became painfully obvious when Nick reached deep down inside himself and found a whole new level of bravery and self-proficiency. He didn't need Joe anymore because everything that used to scare him and send him to Joe fell far behind that time he was laying down in a hospital close to death, and Nick had beat that, so he could beat anything.  
  
So the cameras were pointed at them, and  more and more albums started selling. Joe had to face the facts. He was crowded into Nick's space all the time because he needed Nick, needed to have that wall between himself and the world. It didn't matter how out-going he seemed, he didn't want strangers paying attention to him, picking out even more flaws. He just wanted Nick to need him again, but all of his neediness countered all of the times Nick  _did_  end up tugging on his arm and using Joe's presence to help him breathe.  
  
Soon enough Joe re-discovered Google as someone famous, and when he pulled up the articles, it said everything he already knew about himself. He was lacking in intelligence, his eyebrows were a mess, his sense of humor was obviously a cover for his insecurities, and he only sounded good for part of a song every now and again. That Nick was a musical genius though, and Kevin wasn't taken too seriously for once, but he got less flack than Joe, that was for sure.  
  
Walking back to the area where the beds were, Joe left open a screen saying what a useless piece of matter he was. Instead of moving to his bed, he crawled under the covers with Nick, wrapped his arm around the boy who no longer fit, was big, always finding new ways to gain one up on Joe. Nick turned around in his arms, gave him a questioning look, let out a hesitant breath as his face got closer to Joe's, pulled away and then whispered a quick, "I love you Joe but..." before Nick moved out from Joe's arm and went to lay in Joe's empty one. Joe wanted to turn around and ask Nick why he'd done that when this bed was just as empty, but he was afraid if he tried, he would discover he had no voice left, so he lay still and let sleep claim him, running out of reasons to breathe.


End file.
